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Langston Hughes’ Critique of The Cotton Club:

The underlying goal that Owney Madden had in mind for The Cotton Club was to provide “an authentic black entertainment to a wealthy, whites-only audience.” As mentioned, Langston Hughes, a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, attended The Cotton Club as a rare black guest. Following his visit, Hughes criticized the club’s segregated atmosphere and commented that it was nothing more than "a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites" in his essay, “When the Negro Was in Vogue." In addition to the jungle music and plantation-themed interior, Langston Hughes believed that Madden’s idea of “authentic black entertainment” was similar to the entertainment provided at a zoo. Hughes  said angrily that white “strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo.”

For Hughes, the Cotton Club also affected the Harlem community as well. The craze brought an “influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang.” Hughes also mentions how many of the neighboring cabarets, especially black cabarets, were forced to shut down from trying to compete with The Cotton Club. These smaller clubs did not have a big show floor and a band like The Cotton Club with big names like Duke Ellington.